


Beach Day

by Bandity



Series: Voltron Whump Week [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Langst, Nausea, Near Death Experience, injuries, venom - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-18 12:42:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11874699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bandity/pseuds/Bandity
Summary: The Paladins finally get a break. Lance always finds trouble though...





	Beach Day

**Author's Note:**

> For day... 6? of whump week: Poison.
> 
> A direct continuation of my fic 'Within,' you don’t have to read it, but it provides a nice little background for this fic. I do try to explain things briefly anyway, there’s just no details.

There were thousands of miles of beaches and sun and beautiful oceans. They had already been visiting this planet for over a week, but everyone kept finding excuses not to leave. They were situated in a more remote location, so they weren’t sharing this beach with anyone else besides the team. It was their private beach getaway. At first, it was only supposed to be for Lance’s birthday, but then they decided to stay a few more days and then a week went by… but nobody wanted to be the one that suggested they go back to being defenders of the universe just yet. They had needed the vacation, especially Lance, who had been so sick just a short while ago. It was good to see him smiling again.

However, while nobody said it, Lance knew that they would be leaving soon. He felt the shift in the energy; the little bit of regret that started to creep in on Shiro’s and Coran’s faces. They didn’t want to tell him it was time to go, but he knew that it was. So Lance started saying goodbye. He spent a whole day in the ocean, playing in the waves. The next day, he decided to go walk to the tide pools that he actually hadn’t visited yet.

“Pidge, want to take a walk with me?”

“You going over to the caves?” Pidge was huddled under an umbrella. She had burned quite badly on the very first day and she was trying to avoid a repeat incident, but she still wanted to be out with everyone. So she sat huddled under her umbrella and watched the waves.

“Nope, I’m going to the little tide pools on the other side of the cove. Wanna come with?”

Pidge pursed her lips and thought about it.

“Yeah, okay.” She stood up and brushed sand off of her shorts. Lance grinned widely, happy to have company on his expedition. Hunk was usually the one to accompany him on things like this, but his friend was currently preparing to make an alien version of fish and chips for everyone.

Lance and Pidge passed by Coran who was stretched out on a towel, soaking up the sun.

“Where are you two headed?” He asked curiously.

“Tide pools,“ Lance picked up a nearby discarded bucket, because you always needed a bucket for shells and stuff.

“Alright, be careful.”

“We will be,” Lance called over his shoulder.

They had to walk quite a way to reach the pools, but Lance wanted to be sure to visit it before they left. He would stop occasionally and put a new shell or rock into the bucket. Pidge helped out too, adding in anything she thought was interesting.

When they finally got to the tide pools, Lance sat down on a rock and peered down into the water below. There was a lot of little creatures swimming around and crawling their way around the bottom of the pool. Lance swirled the water a bit with a hand and watched a sponge looking creature squirm away from him.

Pidge sat down next to him and stuck her toes in the water.

“They don’t have starfish. It’s weird not to see any,” Lance remarked.

"Yeah,” Pidge agreed. “They got sea anemones though.”

“Sea urchins too…” Lance motioned to a red spiked animal stuck to the side of the pool wall. Pidge hummed and stood up. She stretched her arms and started to walk to the next pool. Lance watched her for a moment before turning back to the water to continue watching something green that could have been a plant or some kind of sea worm?

Lance noticed one of the sea urchins was higher up in the pool wall and it was looking a bit grey in color. He wondered if it needed to be in the water. Lance studied it for a moment and then he nudged it, trying to see if it would dislodge from the wall. It didn’t move so he tapped it with his finger again.

It made a sort of squeaking noise and its spines shuddered. Lance tilted his head, wondering if he had hurt it.

In the blink of an eye, three of the spines shot out and hit Lance in his palm. They were so small it was like being stabbed with a couple of thin toothpicks, but it still startled him and it stung. Lance sat up and frowned at the spikes protruding from his hand. So… not the same as earth’s sea urchins; more like little water porcupines.

Lance grabbed the spikes and pulled them out one at a time. Luckily they weren’t that deep, but they still pulled at his skin and he suspected that they were barbed. His hand began bleeding and Lance pressed the bottom edge of his tank top into it. The bleeding began to slow, but Lance was surprised at how much it burned.

Lance looked around to find Pidge, but he didn’t see her anywhere. He got up and walked around the little pools, he started to climb over a large rock and found Pidge kneeling on the drying sand. The waves were coming in and just brushing against her knees before they receded again. She was looking at something and Lance didn’t see it until he had finished climbing over the rock.

There was another sea porcupine-urchin. But this one was much, much larger. Pidge had a stick and curiously she reached out and tapped its quills.

“Pidge!” Lance had seen it shudder and it made that high pitched squeaking noise. He dove forward without a second thought. He had been expecting it, but he hadn’t been prepared for how much worse it stung this time.

“Lance!”

He had thrown himself in front of her with his right arm stretched out, hoping he would just cover her enough to protect her. Luckily, none of the quills had hit her. They all found Lance though. Two were in his upper arm, one had hit his shoulder and one had hit him right where his neck and shoulder met.

Pidge was swearing like he had never heard before. He wanted to say something to reassure her, but the surprising pain took the words from. Despite the pain, he pushed Pidge’s shoulder trying to get her away from the creature. They both scrambled further back on the sand. Lance became distantly aware that his knee hurt and he assumed he had hit it against a rock when he had dove into harm’s way.

Lance was quickly pulling out the barbed spikes. They pulled at his skin and he ground his teeth as they tugged and ripped his skin. He was trying to make a grab for the one near his neck but found it was at an awkward angle.

“Maybe we should leave that in for now, you’re bleeding.”

“I want it off,” Lance bit out as he struggled to get a good grip on the quill.

“I can do that. I can do it.” Pidge grabbed the spike and got it out in one awful, swift motion. Lance let out a short gasp, but he didn’t cry out.

Blood was freely trickling down his arm from the torn puncture marks.

“Lance…” Pidge held a hand over the wound on his neck that was bleeding the most, dripping blood down his back and into the collar of his tank top.

“It’s fine. They’re not that deep. Let’s just go back, okay?”

“Okay.”

Lance worked his shirt off and Pidge helped him pull it over his head. He pressed it into his upper arm, but Pidge quickly took it from him and ripped the shirt into two pieces with an apology on her lips. She wrapped one make shift bandage around his arm and tied it in place. She pressed the other bandage into his neck. Lance tapped her fingers and took over with applying pressure.

Lance was now regretting walking all the way out to the tide pools. It was going to take ages to get back. Lance insisted that he was okay to travel, he had scraped his knee pretty badly, but he could still walk at least.

“You didn’t have to do that, you know?” Pidge kept her eyes downcast as she walked close to Lance, almost bumping his injured arm.

“Do what? Save you from the sea porcupine? Of course I did. It would have got you in the face.”

“I don’t like it when people get hurt because of me.”

Lance sighed. Honestly, he didn’t feel up to conversation. His whole arm and shoulder were beginning to hurt a great deal. The initial stinging had given way to a painful pulsing sensation. A strange tingling had started in his hand and moved into his fingertips. He flexed his fingers and realized that the movement felt difficult. Lance looked down at his hand. He was dripping blood into the sand as they walked, leaving a macabre trail behind them.

Lance blinked. His one hand was bigger than the other. It had swelled and taken on an angry red tinge. Lance scanned his entire arm; the whole thing was swelling around the bandage Pidge had tied. He couldn’t see it, but his neck was difficult to turn. There was a burning hot sensation that shot through his whole right side.

He made a distressed sound in the back of his throat, but Pidge didn’t seem to hear him, she was lost in her own thoughts.

“Pidge…” He forced out. His throat felt tight. What was happening? This didn’t feel like shock. This was something else.

Alarmed at his tone, Pidge turned and looked up at Lance. Her eyes widened.

“Your neck is swelling, Lance. Your arm too! Holy shit.”

“My mouth feels kinda numb.”

Pidge made a grab for his hand to inspect it, but the movement hurt so much, Lance gasped and yanked his arm away.

“Don’t,” he plead.

“Lance, it must have had venom.”

“Poisonous sea porcupine?” Lance mumbled.

“Poison is something you ingest or inhale, venom is injected,” Pidge quickly explained and Lance only stared at the biology lesson he was suddenly receiving.

“Gonna have to pee on it like a jellyfish sting?”

“… No. I don’t think that’s going to work on this.”

“Oh… good.” Lance looked relieved.

“I mean we don’t know anything about it. We don’t know how dangerous it is.”

“Let’s keep going.” Lance forced out. They couldn’t do anything about it standing on the beach by themselves. They needed to get back to Coran and the castleship.

“You should probably sit down, I can run ahead,” Pidge suggested.

“No, I can do it,” Lance insisted. Pidge wanted to argue, but she didn’t want to waste any more time.

Pidge stayed close as they continued walking back. However, it wasn’t long until Lance started shuffling his feet and wavering back and forth. Pidge bit her lip. He was starting to sweat a lot and his arm had swollen even more. She was about to suggest that they stop when Lance pitched forward and fell to his knees in the sand. He used his good arm to keep him from falling on his face and he groaned when the pain radiated throughout his body.

Pidge knelt in front of him and reached over to grab his good wrist in order to check his pulse.

“That’s fast,” Pidge whispered. She was really scared now. Lance was starting to breathe too hard. “Lance…”

“It’s fine. I can make it.” Even as he said it, his head dropped and he rested his forehead on Pidge’s shoulder. “Just give me a second.”

Lance swallowed hard against the nausea in his throat. Everything was starting to blur and his arm felt like it was on fire. He had never felt anything like it before.

Pidge didn’t know what to do. She just stared, watched the blood from Lance’s neck create streaks as it ran down his back. He had dropped the bandage on his neck at some point.  She wanted to hug him, but she didn’t want to hurt him and they probably didn’t even have time for it. Lance could be dying.

Lance forcibly cleared his throat and he slowly leaned away from Pidge’s shoulder.

“Pidge, get my bracelet for me? I don’t want it to get ruined.”

The bracelet wasn’t much more than some twine with some beads threaded through it, but it had been a gift from an alien child named Kitsa, who Lance adored. The bracelet was special to him. He wanted to keep it safe from the blood that had soaked the bandage and was running down his arm.

“Yeah, of course.” Pidge worked quickly to untie it. Lance’s hand had swelled so much. It was hard for her to get the trinket off. Her hands shook slightly as she wiped blood from it.

“Don’t lose it, okay?”

“I won’t.” Pidge carefully placed it in her shorts’ pocket. With a deep breath, Lance stood on shaky legs and took a hesitant step. Pidge ducked under his good arm and tried to be a crutch.

“Pidge, no. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t hurt me. I can do it. Lean on me.”

Lance acquiesced. He pushed down hard on her shoulder to keep himself upright. Pidge stayed steady, she wouldn’t allow herself to buckle under the pressure. The whole time they walked, Pidge was fighting back her worry and her anger. Lance was wheezing now. It wasn’t fair. He had just gotten over being really sick. He didn’t deserve to be so hurt and scared and far from home.

None of them did.

Pidge blinked away frustrated tears, she had to stay strong. It didn’t matter if Lance was digging his fingers into her shoulder and it hurt, or that she felt like her own legs were going to shake to pieces from the stress.

Lance stopped walking and he shook his head so that the sweat that had accumulated in his hair splattered the dry sand beneath him. He breathed. Swallowed the saliva that had formed in his mouth and took two more shaky steps.

“Can’t,” Lance mumbled as his knees buckled and he sunk to the ground even though Pidge tried to keep him on his feet.

“Lance, we’re close. We can make it.”

“Pidge, you run ahead and get help. Bring them back here.”

Lance shut his eyes and let his arm fall from around Pidge’s shoulder.

“I don’t want to leave you here.” She had been the one to originally suggest going on ahead in the first place, but now… she didn’t know if she could leave him alone.

To be honest, Lance didn’t want to be left behind. His vision kept blurring and he felt like water was rushing through his ears. His heart was hammering away and his lungs wouldn’t cooperate. This was scary and, more than anything, he didn’t want to be alone.

This was probably what dying felt like.

And he didn’t want Pidge to have to watch it.

Lance’s best chance was to get help to come to him and it didn’t matter what he or anyone wanted. If he was going to be okay, he needed the others to come. She was going to have to leave him.

“I don’t want to leave you by yourself. I don’t want anything to happen to you while I’m gone.”

Lance opened his eyes and gave Pidge a glossy look.

“Then run fast, Pidge.”

Pidge choked, but nodded in understanding. She clutched his uninjured hand briefly before she stood and ran from that place. She tried not to think what would happen if she wasn’t fast enough.

That couldn’t be the last conversation she would have with Lance.

She still had so much that she wanted to talk about with him. She wanted to hang out and eat meals and she didn’t want that to be the last time he spoke to her.

Pidge’s feet pounded against the sand as she ran and ran as hard as she could. Something pierced her foot and she realized she must have stepped on a rock or a broken shell, but she kept going.

She would be damned if she was going to lose any more of her family.

* * *

Hunk had been walking along the beach, looking for anything else that he could add to their dinner that night, when he looked up to see Pidge running as though her life depended on it.

Lance wasn’t with her.

He had known that they had gone to the tide pools together to explore, so he instantly knew that something had gone very wrong.

“Pidge! What happened?” Hunk shouted. Pidge looked up from her determined sprint and she began to stumble.

“Hunk!” She shouted breathlessly. “Hunk! Get Coran, get Shiro! Lance’s hurt!”

Hunk had already known it, but his stomach sunk all the same. He nodded and began running toward where he last saw Coran, shouting. Everyone was soon alerted and Shiro took off in a sprint to retrieve Lance. Coran actually ran back to the castleship and prepared the infirmary to treat someone who had encountered venom.

Pidge had started to run back the way she had come. Hunk and Keith both sprinted past her, following Shiro, and she was relieved. Any of them would be able to carry Lance if they needed to. Pidge kept stumbling, but she forced her shaking legs to keep going. Her foot stung sharply and she thought that she must be cut pretty badly. But she needed to get there too. She needed to make sure he was okay…

A streak of blue shot across the sky with a resounding roar. Blue had left her hangar. She made a beeline down the beach. She was going for her paladin. Lance must have found a way to reach out to her. Good.

Pidge’s legs crumpled beneath her as she watched the lion grow smaller in the distance. Blue could get there and bring him back. Pidge felt exhaustion suddenly overwhelm her and she collapsed into the sand. It would be okay. They would make it to him in time.

Relieved tears dripped down her face and wet the sand below.

* * *

 

There was a cold breeze and a darkness that told her that night was falling. She wasn’t sure what had happened, had she passed out? Her head felt a little fuzzy.

Before she could figure out what was going on, arms were around her and she was being lifted and carried. She recognized this presence. She knew this person, she was safe with him.

“Shiro’s been having a heart attack over looking for you.” Keith sounded worried.

“Sorry, my legs stopped working. Think I passed out,” Pidge mumbled.

“You probably got dehydrated and overheated. You don’t drink enough water,” Keith readjusted his grip, making sure he wouldn’t drop her.

“Lance…” Pidge started, but couldn’t finish. They had gotten to him in time, hadn’t they?

“Lance will be fine.”

Pidge sighed, letting the last of her tension go.

“Shiro got him aboard Blue and they made it to the infirmary in time. He’s in a pod now. Coran had to give him a shot of antivenom though. It was a huge needle. Lance actually tried to get away from them at that point. I mean, he couldn’t get very far, but he tried. Hunk can tell you about it.”

“Lance was awake?”

“Off and on, yeah.”

Pidge nodded against Keith’s shoulder. She was glad he had been at least a little coherent.

“What did you do to your foot?” Keith was always so direct. She could appreciate that.

“Stepped on something. How bad is it?”

“Bad enough to bleed all over the ground.”

“Keith!” A voice shouted from some distance away. “You found her?”

“Yeah!” Keith shouted back. “She cut her foot.”

Pidge craned her neck to see Shiro running towards them.

“Her foot?” Shiro asked as soon as he was within speaking distance. “Here, I got her.”

Pidge was now awake enough to be a little embarrassed about being handed around like she was a baby or something.

“I’m fine.” Pidge insisted, but then Shiro had her in his arms and he squeezed her to his chest. All of her air escaped her as Shiro clung to her tightly.

“I was worried for you,” Shiro mumbled. Pidge nodded as best she could.

“I’m okay, Shiro,” she forced out.

Shiro didn’t let her go, not even when Coran was looking at her foot and cleaning the sand out of it. She ended up with seven stitches and Shiro still stayed close even after it was done. They gave her some water and ordered her to drink it. 

“Can I see Lance?” Pidge asked.

“Of course you can,” Coran told her.

Pidge limped to the pods with Shiro supporting her. When they got there, she just stared for a long time. Lance looked peaceful enough. The swelling had gone down around his neck and on his hand.

“I thought…” Pidge cleared her throat. “I thought that if something happened to him… I realized… I didn’t even say goodbye or anything. I just had to leave him.”

“You did the right thing.” Shiro was always so quick to reassure her.

“Yeah.” It didn’t make it any less terrifying though.

“Are you alright?” Shiro asked after a moment.

“Yeah,” Pidge responded with a nod. “I’m alright.”

* * *

 

When Lance woke up, he was actually a little irritated.

“The pods again… I’m so sick of these things.”

Hunk ignored his griping and wrapped him in a hug right away.

“It’s better than the alternative.” Shiro said with a raised eyebrow. Lance smiled sadly.

“I know, I know.”

“We’ve been waiting for you to wake up. Wasn’t sure if you wanted one last look at the beach. I mean I know you had a pretty bad time before, but I didn’t think that should be your last experience on this planet. It was _supposed_ to be a vacation.” Hunk explained quickly. “I mean, I understand if you don’t want to see it, considering what happened.”

“Hunk, it’s fine. Yeah, I want to say goodbye. It was good til that last part.” Lance was looking around, trying to find…

“Pidge! Are you okay?” Lance asked. Lance was holding out his arms and Pidge didn’t need to be invited twice. She hugged him fiercely. “You okay?” Lance repeated softly. “I didn’t mean to scare you like that.”

“I’m okay. I’m okay now.” Pidge broke the hug and held out her hand. Lance’s bracelet sat in her open palm.

“Thank you,” Lance said with a smile as he carefully plucked it from her hand. “You’re awesome, Pidge.”

Pidge grinned. In the next moment, she was in the middle of a group hug, instigated by mainly Hunk. Shiro was trying to warn them all to be careful of her foot, but he joined in as well, being sure to drag Keith into the huddle too. Pidge sighed, enjoying the warmth of those around her.

There were a lot of things in the universe that could break them and pull them away from each other, but in that moment, they were safe.

Safe and together.

Sometimes that was all that really mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> I was actually pleased with the way this one turned out. I took a little more time with it and was actually awake when I wrote it.... well, most of it. Thank you for reading.


End file.
